Two Interesting Papers on Mars--Disappearing Continents and Re-Filling Canals. AND a Bit on the Origin of "Martian".

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2783

I came upon these three papers while doing some research on the bookstore part of this blog and thought to share them here. Three papers touching different and unusual aspects of Mars.

The first belongs to Henri Jules A. Perrotin (1845-1904 and with Louis Thollon, 1829-1887), "Observation des canaux de Mars; “Lettre de M. Perrotin à M. Faye.” found in Comptes rendus¹. Perrotin's (mostly remembered I think because of his excellent use of the Cornu apparatus in establishing the best speed of light numbers until Michelson) communication establishes that the great canals (“canaux”) he observed and reported to the Academy in 1886 were still there, as expected and as hoped for and celebrated by Schiaparelli. There were also three other rather significant observational findings:

• First, a continent had disappeared. “Clearly visible two years ago, it no longer exists today” he wrote ( “Nettement visible, il y a deux ans, il n'existe plus aujourd'hui.”). A flood, “or something else” (“Cette inondation ou autre chose...”) could well be a periodic occurrence that did away with the land mass.
• Second, there is a new arrival of a canal 20-degrees in size just north of the disappeared/extinct continent (“...au nord du continent disparu...”).
• Third, there was a sort of canal that suddenly appeared on the North Pole ice cap, connecting the two seas on either side of the pole. (“...sur la tache blanche du pôle nord, d'une sorte de canal qui semble relier, en ligne droite, à travers les glaces polaires, deux mers voisines du pôle”).

Perrotin really doesn't have that much to say about what caused anything, mostly restricting himself to his observations--except, as we see above, he wonders about a periodic flood.

The second paper worth reading is J. Norman Lockyer's “La Planete Mars”, found in Review Scientifique  in 1892². 

Lockyer starts off the essay by giving respect and credit to the work of Schiaparelli for his diligent observational duties on Mars. He does find it unfortunate though that the term “canali” of Schiaparelli has caught the popular tremor by being translated as “canals” and so “imply the idea of human work” (“Ce mot qui, en italien comme canalis en latin, signifie canal, chenal ou conduite, fut malheureusement traduit par le mot canal, qui implique l'idée de travail humain”). Lockyer discusses some of the “wonders” (“merveilles”) that are related by Schiaparelli's new work, which includes the doubling and un-doubling of some canals, depending upon the season.

Lockyer again addresses the current fascination with new discoveries on the planet, though he says they are based on misinterpretations, the general public thinking that the gigantic changes taking place on the planet were the result of actions undertaken by Martians/inhabitants (“l'intervention de ses habitants”) whereas Lockyer clearly believes that this is not the case.

After a discussion of the possibility of communicating or messaging with Mars and the best time in the orbits for such a thing, Lockyer provides a rather lengthy summary of proposals of two means of interplanetary communication suggested by Francis Galton and Haweis—the former communicating or signaling by reflected sunlight during the day and the later by electric light at night (“M. Galton se sert donc de la lumière solaire et travaille dans le jour; M. Haweis, lui, propose l'emploi de la lumière électrique et opérerait la nuit”). (There were numerous other plans that seem to have captivated or at least diverted some other very bright minds, including Amos Dolbear and Charles Cros, and earlier with J. von Littrow and C.F. Gauss) such Mars was much on the minds of the general population in 1892, seeing in that year the publication of Camille Flammarion's La Planete Mars et ses conditions d’habitabilite, and then ever more so three years later with Percival Lowell' Mars followed in two years H.G. Wells' blockbuster The War of the Worlds.)

But then Lockyer draws in the speculative reins and asks the reader to consider why Galton and Haweis are reacting so—and that is because the canals of Mars can be seen by some as signaling systems, that Martians are somehow trying to tell us that they are up there. Of course they are doing that with canals that are enormous—1600 kilometers long and 320 kilometers wide. AND that they structures occasionally double, and then reduce, which means that, perhaps, Martians are filling in the canals from time to time, and then digging them out again. (“Mais il est temps de revenir aux observations récentes qui ont donné naissance aux idées que nous venons d'examiner, idées basées sur cette supposition qu'il est de toute évidence que les Martiens nous font des signaux en creusant des « canaux » de 1600 kilomètres de longueur et 320 kilomètres de largeur, puis en les doublant et en y ajoutant de nombreux signaux lumineux. L'opinion publique, persuadée que les changements qui ont été observés récemment sur la planète sont dus à l'intervention de ses habitants — idée basée, nous le verrons tout à l'heure, sur la fausse nterprétation d'un mot — s'est trouvée amenée tout naturellement à admettre que ses habitants avaient entrepris des opérations gigantesques...”)

In any event, Lockyer's look at Mars is pretty inclusive and sober...

Now for the second part of the title: out of curiosity I looked up the word "Martian" in the OED to see how new the word was, or not. That would be "Martian" as related to people from the planet Mars and not, say, something of bearing relating to the god Mars:

"Martian" in the Oxford English Dictionary

1. Of or relating to the planet Mars or its (imagined) inhabitants.

• 1877   N.Y. Times 12 Aug. 4/3.   "If we could safely compare terrestrial with Martian geology..we might almost be tempted to find..an argument in favor of the theory that Mars passed through fewer stages of development during its life-bearing condition than our earth."
• 1880   A. R. Wallace, Island Life 160.   The duration of such phenomena on Mars being reckoned in Martian months equivalent to one-twelfth of a Martian year.
• 1898   H. G. Wells, War of Worlds. ii. ii. 210.   Long before the Martian invasion.

 a. Science Fiction. An (imagined) inhabitant of Mars.

• 1883   W. S. Lach-Szyrma, Aleriel. iii. iii. 109.   He..brought with him another Martian, differently attired.

• 1892   Pall Mall Gaz., 6 Aug. 2/1.   Can it be..that the Martians..are endeavouring to signal to some other planet?

• 1898   H. G. Wells, War of Worlds i. v. 31.   The glimpse I had had of the Martians emerging from the cylinder in which they had come to the earth from their planet.
• Notes

1. "Observation des canaux de Mars; “Lettre de M. Perrotin à M. Faye.” In: Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des sciences de Paris, vol  106 , #20,  pp. 1393–1394. 
2. Lockyer, J. Norman., in Review Scientifique (Rose), volume 50, #17, 22 October 1892, pp 513-520, with two views of Mars, two orbital maps, and a map of the Martian surface showing “double” canals. [I didn't find the English version of this paper until I finished my write up—the French version is mostly but not entirely a translation of Lockyer's “The Opposition of Mars” in the 8 September issue of Nature (the journal edited by Lockyer)].